Of Christenings and Ex's
by JillSwinburne
Summary: It's Josh's Christening and Steve is more than a little stressed. Post series 4 SPOLIERS


This is just a little thing I wrote a couple of years ago about Josh's Christening. Hope you like :D

I own nothing, if I did I'd be much richer ;)

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO0

If, three months ago, you had asked Steve Taylor whether he thought there could be anything more terrifying or traumatic than the day Susan gave birth he would have laughed at you. There could never be anything more horrific than the run up to that whole nerve-shattering event; it was the kind of thing he could see himself talking to therapists about in years to come. The world simply didn't hate him enough to put him through that kind of stress again. And then came the christening.

It was completely incomprehensible to Steve how the simple act of naming a child could be so complicated. To begin with there was the whole question of the church.

"But you never go to church!" he whined as Susan dragged him from font to font.

"That's not the point," she had replied briskly.

He hadn't dared ask her what the point actually was because at that point Joshua had started crying and it had taken nearly half an hour to quieten him down. Susan had always had a touch of the formidable about her but breast-feeding, lack of sleep and occasional pain from the C-section had made her simply unapproachable when she was in one of those moods.

Once they'd finally got a church picked there were the photographs to consider and then there was the whole question of clothes; Joshua would need proper christening robes and Steve would need a new suit.

"But I've got plenty of suits," he said.

"Yes but you need a special one," was the only answer he got.

Then there was the party to consider. They had to rent a hall, there was a buffet to plan and music and little "thank you for coming" goodie bags which had to be given to all the people on the guest list which seemed to take forever to compile. The whole thing was driving him completely up the wall.

"It's displaced organisation," Patrick told him one day.

They were sat in Steve's living room; Susan was out to lunch with Sally so the boys had been left to baby-sit.

"What do you mean "displaced organisation"?" he asked with a frown.

"Well," said Patrick, leaning back on the sofa and gesturing with the play-station controller, "you and Susan never actually got married. I mean you got engaged but then you had a baby yeh?"

Steve shrugged. "Susan says she wants to wait until Josh is old enough to remember it," he said, a trifle gloomily. Much as Steve adored his son the idea of a wedding night with Josh along for the ride just didn't sit comfortably.

"Exactly," said Patrick, nodding. "That's going to be a few years down the line yet."

"So?"

"So, she's not having a wedding, at least not at the moment. Instead she's putting all that organisational energy into planning this christening."

"And Susan has a lot of organisational energy," muttered Steve.

"Well exactly."

A horrible thought struck Steve.

"Oh God, you don't think she'll be this bad when we actually do get married do you?"

Patrick shrugged. "Don't know mate."

Steve mulled the idea over in his head for a while.

"What's Sally like?" he asked eventually.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, with the whole wedding organising thing?"

Patrick and Sally had finally gotten engaged last month. After the whole Jane thing their relationship had been a bit funny for a while, despite her finding the ring in his video cupboard. There had been several arguments in both private and public which tended to involve Sally shouting at the top of her voice that Patrick was a lying, conniving sexual deviant to which his normal reply was to say, "So are you going to marry me or not?"

Eventually Sally had just given in and so far they had been doing pretty well; no major bar brawls or broken windows.

Patrick suddenly looked extremely serious.

"It's like Susan and Mary Poppins had a child only with extra vanity," he intoned which made Steve feel slightly better.

The problem was that it wasn't just Susan; it was her mother as well. The woman seemed to have moved in; he found her handbag under the coffee table, her mobile in the kitchen, her shoes in the hallway. She'd started to talk about herself in the third person under the title of "grandma" and kept trying to knit things, it was disturbing. The lads didn't come to the house anymore just in case they ran into her and Susan only smiled and said, "It's so good of her to help me," as though Steve wasn't doing enough to help as it was!

But eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime, the day of the christening actually came. And it was easy. He'd never thought that something which took so much time and grief to plan could actually be so simple to put into practice.

Joshua behaved like an angel, only wriggling slightly when the minister took him from Susan. Steve had been expecting a lot worse after the amount he'd screamed during the run though, not to mention the fact that those stupid robes probably itched like hell, poor kid, but he kept quiet and dozed off in Steve's arms.

Standing up there beside the font Steve felt like the sun would never stop shining. He looked at Susan and he looked at his son and he knew he could never be happier. And there were Sally and Patrick, holding hands and smiling, and Jeff and some girl called Charlotte he'd met on the plane home from Lesbos, and Jane looking like a million dollars as usual and they were all smiling at him. It was only weeks later when he looked at the official photographs that he realised what an idiotic grin he had plastered over his face.

The party afterwards was quite sedated. The buffet got ploughed through fairly quickly and then everyone hit the bar. Susan took Joshua home early and put him to bed, it had been a long day for him.

"I'll come if you want," he said, putting down his plate of cocktail sausages but she shook her head.

"Someone has to stay and thank everyone for coming," she said, then kissed him on the cheek. "You stay and have a good time and we'll see you later."

"Alright," he kissed her and then leant down to kiss Joshua on the forehead. "I'm leaving you in charge," he whispered to his son and received a raspberry in return.

He walked them to the car and waved as they disappeared. It was cool outside, better than in the hall and he decided to take a walk around the car-park. The calm had broken and Patrick and Sally were arguing in the kitchen and he was fairly certain he'd seen Jeff and Charlotte sneek off towards the toilets a little while ago. Besides, Susan's parents were still inside, he just wanted a little quiet moment to himself.

As he rounded the corner of the building he heard a noise and stopped. There was someone just up ahead, sat on the back steps at the kitchen door, beside the skip. It was a woman and she was most definitely crying.

Steve was about to turn tail and run, he could barely deal with Susan when she was upset about something, any other woman was bound to be a hundred times worse but then he realised who it was.

"Jane?"

She started at the sound of her name and stood abruptly, a bright smile across her face, hastily trying to hide the fact that she'd been crying.

"Steve, I didn't see you there," she said, trying to be cheery. "You shouldn't sneek up on people like that, they might enjoy it."

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Of course I am," she tossed her head, "why wouldn't I be?"

"You were crying."

"No I wasn't! I was just," she groped for an explanation. Steve folded his arms and watched her. When it came to making up ridiculous excuses for things Jane was the female form of Jeff. But tonight it seemed her talent had escaped her and she crumpled slightly.

"Alright," she muttered, "I was crying, but I'm not going to tell you why so don't bother asking!"

Steve shrugged. "Okay."

He paused, trying to think of something else to say.

"Wasn't Oliver meant to be with you?" he asked eventually.

Jane looked down at her shoes and he knew instantly that it had been the wrong thing to say.

"Oliver's left me," she said quietly.

"Oh. Oh Jane, I'm sorry."

"Don't be, it's alright."

He reached out and put an arm around her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, pulling her down to sit on the step once more.

"I don't mind you know," she told him. "He went back to that ex of his, you know, Tamsin."

"Tamsin," he recognised that name from somewhere. "What, pregnant Tamsin?"

She nodded. "Well she was all alone because the guy who got her pregnant had left her and she needed a birthing partner and… Well you know what Oliver's like, he's so sweet and wanted to help and they were spending more and more time together and before you know it, poof!" She flapped her hands to illustrate her point. "No more Oliver."

"I really am sorry Jane," he told her gently and she gave him a little smile.

"I know you are. But you know I was fine, I really was until today."

"Why, what happened?"

"Well I was standing in the church watching that funny man try and drown baby Joshua and I suddenly thought; I'm the only one on my own. I mean you and Susan are together and you've got Josh and Sally and Patrick are engaged, and Oliver's with Tamsin. Even Jeff's found someone, but me, I'm all alone."

She sounded so small all of a sudden and Steve couldn't help but tighten his arm around her shoulders.

"You're not alone Jane," he began but she cut him off, shaking her head.

"Yes I am. And do you know something; Oliver was right. I'm not crazy, wacky Jane, I'm just normal Jane." She looked up at him with large dark eyes, shining with tears. "I'm just normal Jane and I'm a bad girlfriend. I must be; Oliver left me, you left me. I mean if I can't keep either if you two what chance have I got when someone decent comes along?"

Steve chose to ignore that last comment. A lot of the time Jane just spoke without engaging her brain first.

"You're not a bad girlfriend," he told her.

"Says the man who spent the majority of our relationship trying to get rid of me," she added and he felt a bit guilty. It was true he'd spent quite a lot of time trying to avoid Jane while they were together but there had been times when he had really enjoyed her company, not all of which had involved sex.

"I was telling you the truth by the way," she continued in the silence. "That night when you came to the flat when Susan was giving birth. You really did break my heart when you left me for Susan and for ages I just couldn't understand why. And then I met Oliver and he saw right through me and I thought, wow, maybe I actually don't want to be this insane woman who drives away the man she loves. So I tried being normal and he still left me. So what am I supposed to do now?"

She'd started crying again, quietly, onto his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, hey," he soothed, hugging her and gently rubbing her back. "Listen, you are not a bad girlfriend, you are a brilliant, wonderful, sexy girlfriend. A little scary at times I'll admit but then so is every woman," under his breath he added "apparently" but Jane heard and he heard her giggle slightly. He lifted her head from his shoulder and smiled at her.

"You're great Jane, you really are. I'm just sorry it took me so long to realise that."

He dug a hand in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief which he handed to her and she smiled.

"Thanks Steve," she said. "You always were a nice guy."

He gave her a hug.

In the end everyone went home. Sally and Patrick stayed to help clean up, they seemed to have made up again. Jeff and his new girlfriend had left a while ago; Jeff had work in the morning and it seemed that he was going to spend the better part of the day trying to explain to his boss and ex-girlfriend why he had spent that better part of a year on the island of Lesbos. Jane was gone too, Steve had seen her leaving with a friend of Susan's whom he knew to be a doctor. She'd be fine.

When everything was done he said goodnight to the others and got a taxi home.

The house was quiet. He changed in the bathroom for fear of waking the baby, or worse, Susan.

He crawled into bed and wrapped his arms around Susan, burying his face in her hair. He felt her shift slightly, leaning into him and he leant over and kissed her ear.

"Love you," he murmured and then he fell asleep.

Both Steve and Susan got a whole five hours of sleep before Joshua woke up. He cradled Josh in his arms as Susan cleaned up after the feeding, trying to get him back to sleep. Unfortunately Josh had other ideas.

Steve sighed. Still, at least he could wake up the next day knowing that he had almost an entire year before he need go through all that terrible planning again. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about what Susan would have planned for Josh's first birthday.


End file.
